Are Major Polluters Valero and Tesoro Funding Anti AB-32 Initiative?

With the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/03/03/03climatewire-texas-refiners-mum-about-funding-push-to-hal-73127.html reporting today that the Texas-based oil companies Valero and Tesoro are behind the effort to kill AB 32, you'd think the two companies would be honest with California voters about pouring their profits into an attempt to kill our growing clean energy economy and foul our air.

After all, Valero has 807 California service stations and Tesoro has 400 stations in the state (Tesoro also supplies Shell, Mirastar/Wal-Mart), and USA Gasoline, which might be the next action of a coalition of business, health, and environmental groups opposing their effort.

But apparently Assemblymember Dan Logue and People's Advocate leader Ted Costa have been muzzled. And the Big Oil PR machine is quiet.

Opponents? Not so quiet.

"This deceptive initiative would kill hundreds of thousands of jobs and chill billions of dollars of investment in clean energy and other green tech jobs in California," said Ann Notthoff, California Advocacy Director for the NRDC."We should not allow an out-of-state oil company like Valero, with billions of dollars in profits, to buy their way onto the ballot so they can pollute our air and derail a clean energy future for our state."

"This initiative is bad news for our environment and our economy," said Wade Crowfoot, West Coast Political Director for the Environmental Defense Fund.  "By damaging our renewable energy future, this would increase California's dangerous dependence on foreign oil.

Expect any California company that puts themselves in the ring with Big Oil to also get smeared. After all, Valero was named one of the worst polluters in the U.S. (Source:  The Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts, http://www.peri.umass.edu/Toxic-100-Table.265.0.html). The company was hit with $711 million in fines by EPA in 2005.

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Climatewire: Texas Refiners Mum About Funding Push to Halt Calif. Climate Law
3/3/10
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/03/03/03climatewire-texas-refiners-mum-about-funding-push-to-hal-73127.html

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